BARBERMONGER is a site designed to help roleplayers find other roleplayers, specifically one-on-one roleplayers, as opposed to larger roleplay games. Functioning like a pinboard, BARBERMONGER allows users to create advertisements, bump advertisements, and respond to other advertisements, without requiring them to register an account. However, registering an account will allow you to edit your posts, find your own topics, and use the private messaging system.

((i really can't explain this premise except that i wanted to write about vampires, but also have an intense allergy to taking things seriously. no prior knowledge of toronto required and may even be actively discouraged))

“It’s called ‘Midnight Bakery’.” Yun switches the phone to his other ear, retrieving the keys from his pocket. “You think so? Well, I’d rather be obvious than disingenuous.” After a pause he laughs, gliding over all reproach. “Anyway, sign’s already up. Nothing I can do about it.”

The newly minted storefront stands between a lingerie shop and an ancient corner bistro, minimal letters on solid gray. The contractors have just finished the exterior this afternoon, but to Yun’s eyes the place is already blending into the hodgepodge of the neighbourhood: bric-a-brac businesses pasted to nineteenth-century brick apartments, students teeming from every window. With another jiggle of the lock he's in. A whiff of varnish stings his nose. Somewhere down the street a bassline thumps, while the daisy-chain lights of a pub veranda flicker on. Friday night in the annex.

“You don’t have to come up. I've got someone helping me on the business end-- no, no, he doesn't know. But he's reliable.” Half-listening to the lecture that follows, he walks a circle round the tables that were installed last week, tracing a prospective line along the wall with the tip of his finger, and bends down to inspect the glass counter by the register, all the while navigating in perfect darkness. Sometimes he enjoys the conceit of going through the motions, doing what living people do, but more often than not he forgets to turn on the lights. “Have fun with your new fledgling. Yes, I’ll be careful. Send Mina my love.”

Pocketing the phone, he stands deliberating a moment before fishing it out again, swiping the screen to hang up. He often forgets that step too, on these glossy things with no buttons. For a young man born at the turn of the century, the world is a different place these days.

--

In May the city is beautiful for a few short weeks, the remnants of a long winter forgotten but the worst of the heat yet to come. Exams are over, summer standing poised to break. Though a wave of murders has been sweeping the city this month, their relevance stretches thin here: a few more locked doors, an extra glance over the shoulder. The victims have all been homeless. A sidebar in the papers.

More interesting are the smells developing at a corner of the student district: mousseline cream, candied almond, pain au lait. The Midnight Bakery has stood open for three weeks now, and interest is growing. Open from 9 pm to just before sunrise, the bakery offers a few choice selections each night-- authentic French pastries from the owner and patissier, who also stands at the cash register and smiles at passers-by through the window. He is a comfortable-looking man in round-rimmed glasses, east asian in a neighbourhood where it goes unquestioned, with an ageless kind of face that many say -- sometimes sneeringly -- is par for the course. Only the hair, tied back at the nape and prematurely gray, merits a second glance. He wears a spotless chef jacket with the sleeves rolled up.

Just this very moment, he is walking around the register with a placard under his arm, sidestepping the Ikea tables and chairs that make up the small seating area. He shoulders the front door open, setting off the windchimes, and heads out to prop open the placard at the entrance. 'HELP WANTED,' it says, in a large hand that might have been stencilled, for all its regularity. Stepping back, the owner examines the sign for a moment before squatting down, adding a squiggly chalk arrow underneath.

'ASK ME,' he writes, in the same neat hand, and tops it off with a little drawing of round glasses. Then with solemn satisfaction he stands and heads back inside.